Cold Warmth
by Namimakura
Summary: A series of one-shot drabble fics written for the 30kisses livejournal community. Nemu/Ukitake. Beware, crack pairing within.


AN: Here begins the 30kisses challenge from livejournal!! Never thought I'd even get an lj, let alone do a challenge, but there you go. Considering this brilliant, yet cracky pairing stolen from C. Queen, who writes the most brilliant Nemu fics out there. I recommend Arms of the Angel, Sexy Captain's Curse and Finding Nemu. Anyways, hope you enjoy the first installment (and continuing ones) and reviews would make me amazingly happy!

List: Theta/instinct #1 Waking Dreams

_.:Nemu:._

Nemu had always known she lived in a separate world from those around her. It was like looking through clear glass and seeing the world in brilliant specificity and luminous colors. Everything was perfect and fit precisely where it was supposed to fit. It was beautiful.

Mayuri-Taichou had been the one to open her eyes. She knew she could see like this only because her father had made her so.

Nemu saw the rules differently. Pain was simply another state of being-whether it be physical or emotional, intense or faint-and like all other states, would end. Eventually it might come again, but what did it matter when she knew it would pass?

Her loyalty was always to her father. Some would say that was simply because she was programmed that way.

She preferred to think of it as instinct.

So it came as no surprise to her when others misunderstood the relationship she and her father shared. She had tried to explain it once-to the Quincy-but was fairly certain she'd failed in that venture. The conversation had consisted of her explaining that she was relieved that Mayuri-Taichou was still alive to which he had been shocked. She had realized that she couldn't explain it-because they simply saw the world differently.

The honest truth was that every breath was so bright and beautiful that even the pain had its place and shade. This was her world. There was no one who could see it through her eyes.

This wasn't to say that she enjoyed the pain. That she didn't suffer some feeling of betrayal. It was only that she couldn't see it as wrong, not when it was what she was born to be.

The truth was that she pitied the rest of the world, because they could never see what she did. She was awake, while they slept on, oblivious to what potential lay in their surroundings.

She may have been bound by rules and strictures of obligatory obedience, but her mind was free of natural prejudices and biases (especially those emotionally based) that other shinigami held. It was a simple fact that had occasionally gotten her into trouble and frequently subjected her to some very strange misunderstandings.

She knew they thought she was crazy.

But she knew that she was the one that was truly, consciously _living_, even if she wasn't quite free.

So why was it, that when Nemu's soft lips met Ukitake's in a rush of simultaneous heat and cool perfection, she felt as though she were waking up for the very first time?

_.:Ukitake:._

Ukitake was known for his unruffled demeanor. He had lived for so long, experienced so many pointless trivialities that such things simply ceased to matter to him. He could easily smile in the face of the most pointless disagreements. He was possessed with a patience others envied due to longsuffering exposure to constant illness.

Ukitake lived in a world where people slipped in and out, constantly on the fringes of his consciousness. Because of his illness, he never truly got the opportunity to grow close to very many. So many died, passing away and he simply missed it altogether.

It was surreal. Like living in a dream.

Certainly he mourned. Some more than others. But mostly he existed, passing by, and clinging to only a precious few. Oh, he tried to move outside of his enclosed circle. He was kind, always reaching out to rescue yet another lost soul, burdened with a heavy heart. Each time he tried, it seemed that they would still die. Shiba Kaien, and so many others. Somehow he'd never kept a vice-captain for long.

So instead, he lived in this haze of almost participating, where he always cared, but never too much. Rather, it was for the select few that he still smiled easily. The protective mist allowed to stay alive without the despair that accompanies near-immortality.

Shunsui was his only real connection with reality. As best friends back in the academy days, they had passed the generations together, always together, his one constant in a sea of change. Shunsui connected him to Ise-san, who connected him to her concrete reality filled with rules and consistency.

He did keep track of the world. He did care about the souls in it. He just knew better than to care in any way other than general. Knew to never get too attached to any one in particular, because they all died to quickly.

He felt as if he were living in a dream of his own making, constantly never fully awake. He smiled on cue, responded on cue. He even coughed himself into fits when the right time approached.

He knew that no one else had realized how detached he was from the rest of the world. He also knew it bordered on retreat from the world itself. Still, it was living in his dream world that kept him sane.

So why did Ukitake have this strange, unerring feeling that this dream would be the one to wake him at last? All he asked was that it be a dream worth the prices of waking.


End file.
